51–60 of 81 posts
I don’t see how we can address resource consumption and pollution more broadly without population controls. We need a two child, replacement rate rule. Otherwise we will continually play whack a mole with patching symptoms and bickering politics. And yet no one wants to own up to this reality.
I don’t see how we can address resource consumption and pollution more broadly without population controls. We need a two child, replacement rate rule. Otherwise we will continually play whack a mole with patching symptoms and bickering politics. And yet no one wants to own up to this reality.
Before the Haber-Bosch process, humans numbered about 2 billion. That process requires fossil fuels. With some efficiency gains we can probably double that number, but along with many other triangulation points, it seems only a substantially smaller number than today's would allow sustainable human society.
We can get there by lowering the birth rate or nature can do it for us, which would likely lower it well beyond.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> South Korea and Taiwan have higher population density than India ... This is disingenuous. Australia has an astonishingly low population density (3.1 people / square kilometre) however it has about the same volume of arable land as France and most of that land is poorer (soil, nutrient) quality, and has a lot lower rainfall and is prone to more severe weather events ... etc. Assessing or comparing population densit…
We're talking about Delhi here, not all of India.
Parent was comparing country population densities.
GP was asserting whole of India is overpopulated, while also trying to assert that 'this issue only affects Delhi'.
Clearly the 'only affects Delhi' isn't pollution related -- as most large cities in India are literally breathtakingly polluted.
So I assume GP was asserting that the burnoff issue was a purely Delhi (or surrounds) related issue ... though even that seems unlikely given the water management & agricultural practices throughout the country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I travel to India every other month for my job. Most agriculture happens on small farms by poor and uneducated people. Introducing new technology and agricultural practices is difficult but is certainly underway in parts of the country. There is also a lack of political will to solve the problem in the particular case of Delhi and its neighboring state of Punjab, and as the parent comment suggested, there is very muc…
It does not help that land holdings in India can be as small as 2-3 acres per person. Water distribution is what decides the overall economy of a given region and due to political reasons it has not been easy to change agricultural policies either (although a big effort is underway).
Why do you think this doesn't help?
Are there examples of countries with much larger average landholdings where land management practices are considered excellent?
Some specific points that may be lost in the headline / cursory reading of the article: 1) India as a whole is overpopulated and has a pollution problem. This particular issue is limited to Delhi, however. 2) From the perspective of the magnitude and extreme levels of pollution, this is a seasonal issue whose primary contributor, by a large margin, is farmers burning off their crop stubble after their harvest ends. T…
South Korea and Taiwan have higher population density than India, and Japan is not far off (517/km, 652/km, 412/km, and 334/km, respectively) > 1) India as a whole is overpopulated...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
South Korea and Taiwan have higher population density than India, and Japan is not far off (517/km, 652/km, 412/km, and 334/km, respectively) > 1) India as a whole is overpopulated...
> South Korea and Taiwan have higher population density than India ... This is disingenuous. Australia has an astonishingly low population density (3.1 people / square kilometre) however it has about the same volume of arable land as France and most of that land is poorer (soil, nutrient) quality, and has a lot lower rainfall and is prone to more severe weather events ... etc. Assessing or comparing population densit…
Can anyone find on the internet: 1. An explanation of how AQI is calculated? Some initial searching turns up very little information as to the basis of the index. 2. How the safety levels (green, orange, red, purple) are decided. It seems somewhat opaque. Anyone know why this is?
https://cpcb.nic.in/National-Air-Quality-Index/
For US, EPA has some additional info available:
https://www3.epa.gov/airnow/aqi-technical-assistance-documen...
I don’t see how we can address resource consumption and pollution more broadly without population controls. We need a two child, replacement rate rule. Otherwise we will continually play whack a mole with patching symptoms and bickering politics. And yet no one wants to own up to this reality.
Have you looked at the birth rate of India for the last 30 years, it has been consistently falling down.
Some of the Southern Indian states have birth rates below replacement rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_union_terri...